The Animated Video Process From A to Z
The process of creating an animated video is complicated and the steps from start to finish numerous. However, don't be intimidated! Video is a wonderful marketing tool that easily engages people and rapidly improves lead generation and sales. In order to create a video that will be successful, knowing these steps will help you. It will empower you to understand what to look for, what to expect, and what to watch out for. Step 1) - What do I want my story to be? Animation is a storytelling tool. So getting clear on what you want your audience to understand about your story is essential. A good place to start is to ask yourself this question; what do I want my video
The last ten years has heralded a massive change in how marketers and advertisers reach their customers, collect data, make their products known, and create experiences that enhance brands and sell to the public. Smaller companies now have more options available to them online than ever before to reach, understand, and curtail their businesses and services to customers in need. This includes the rise of the use of cellphones, an explosion in app development, responsive and easy to build websites and interactive website ads, and now VR and AR (Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality). These products add to the branding and marketing packages for companies large and small and enable more engagement, and help people understand your products and what you do. This freeing up of
eLearning Visual Development – Tips and Tricks
As someone who has been working in the e-learning industry for about three years now as both a visual designer and author of various courses, I've run into a few scenarios on the visual design side that I think may be of help to fellow designers. The following are a list of common problems I've run into as a designer. As well as some of the ways I've found that seem to work best in resolving said problems. Creating Effective Abstract Visuals: Problem: The visuals you're creating aren't working in getting across the point to your audience. Strategy: Try to brainstorm the scenario you're tasked with visually designing for into symbols that are both simple and easy to understand for everyday individuals. This includes using
eLearning Course Authoring – Dos and Don’ts
As a media designer and animator. I often run into the issue of courses being written in ways that make it hard to understand visually what an author is implying. Sometimes with very technical subjects, like engineering and computer networking, it is normal for many designers to not understand the author's intentions. However, sometimes written storyboards can be so vague that it's hard to effectively communicate about what is visually needed, and your designer will often make mistakes and ask a lot of questions, causing a lot of wasted time and money for everyone. Below are a list of Do's and Don't for course authors to keep in mind when writing a course for your animator or media designer. Whether you're an
eLearning Visual Essentials
Let’s talk eLearning. It’s a growing industry with a number of different approaches to Learning Management System (LMS) development and media design. I’ve been working in the industry consistently for two years now, and I’ve noticed some rules and guidelines that make content better, and more affective to a learner. Here are some of the rules I’ve noticed that seem to consistently work to keep a learner’s attention, and make your courses look great at the same time. Visual Essential 1 – Create a Clean, Clear Visual Style Having a crisp, clear, inviting look to your courses, whether they involve film, animation, interactive, or something of a combination is the number one rule. People feel like they trust your brand when it
I've been someone who's always been fascinated with video games. I first started playing them when I was in daycare as a small kid. My first games were the original Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt, of which I used the light gun at that time to shoot said ducks. I've also been something who has been fascinated by and interested in good storytelling. Stories are what human beings use to entertain, impart life lessons, and teach others about the world around them. I wrote a lot of stories when I was a kid, and always enjoyed the process. I feel like the video game industry is finally waking up to the power of good, affective storytelling in games. The problem is
In the past ten years there has been a growing demand by small businesses for cheap, quick and affectively marketing videos created for the web. Specifically these video include or are entirely made up of motion graphics and animation as their backbone. They are typically called 'Explainer Videos' and the demand for them is steadily growing. This is significant because animation has a unique advantage over things like slideshows, photo galleries or even live action footage. Animation can be incredibly strong at showing abstract ideas or enhancing the content or brand of a company to be friendlier and show their potential clients or customers what they do, or how a product they sell works. As someone who's working on eLearning courses for
So I've been quiet about my new short film for a little while, but it's making slow and steady progress. In my off time I've been storyboarding and working with a sound guy to get the dialogue to a place where I can use it for the first draft of my animatic. I'm excited to get this going, it's just been very slow progress. I do find with personal projects however that I need to set aside some time where I can work on it once a week. If I do that, stuff does tend to get done in a timely manner. Here are a few of the concepts I drew from early last year. I'll be putting up other progress reports
I've been inspired this week by making some slow progress on my short film, NF Core 01. I had a dialogue session with my sound guy that happened last August that we were finally getting around to cleaning up. A lot of people don't understand the fundamental steps and workflow required to create an animated shortfilm, so I put together this small flowchart to show the steps involved in a broad sense and how they fit together and are connected. There are a lot of minutiae here I'm leaving out because the process is very complicated and has a lot of moving parts. It's a lot of work but for me it's a labor of love to create short films. Every
I'm one of those people who likes being abreast of what's happening in markets you wouldn't think of who are using motion graphics, animation and design to get their message across and how affective it can be if it's done right. Visual storytelling is an excellent way to get customers engaged with your brand or cause, no matter what you're selling. Visuals, moving or not, speak to people in a way that simple audio or reading something in a magazine or newspaper do not when it comes to creating an instant connection with an intended audience. As someone who's been doing creative writing, drawing comic strips, and animating things since I was very young, I understand how powerful and engaging well crafted